Review in a Hurry: Friday the 13th movies have been a mixed bag in the past, but this remake of sorts delivers the red meat fans are craving, figuratively and literally. Oh, and the latest iteration of hockey-masked slasher Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) is a backwoods marijuana grower who'll kill you and your friends if you dare to touch his stash. Seriously.
The Bigger Picture: Yeah, it sounds a little silly on paper—the Jason of old seemed to have a vendetta against drug users—but it fits with the changing times. Today's J-man is more libertarian than puritan, as one of his neighbors even warns tourists that he just wants to be left alone. So just don't steal his drugs, and don't flaunt your libertine lifestyle in has face, by having singer/UFC ring girl Willa Ford go waterskiing topless on his lake or something.
Those really aren't tough rules to follow, but somehow the stupid yet beautiful youngsters who come around the old Camp Crystal Lake just can't help themselves from trespassing.
For old-school fans: Yes, Jason's mother (Nana Visitor) is shown as the original camp killer in a flashback to 1980, and yes, Jason wears a sack on his head before finding the hockey mask. It's perhaps a little unnecessary to show us a junior hockey trophy in his childhood home—this deformed lunk really won grade-school hockey tournaments prior to his apparent drowning? And that's why he feels affection for the mask? Too much information.
Still, you can't go wrong with a Friday the 13th movie if you follow a few simple rules:
Creative kills? Check.
Gratuitous sex scenes? Check, including one that we actually get to see from beginning to end without Jason interrupting.
Large amounts of drugs and alcohol? Check (suggested drinking game for the DVD: drink whenever anyone onscreen does).
Best of all, Jason's back to being an angry predator, following the depressive Ken Kirzinger emo-Jason who fought Freddy Krueger (in 2003's Freddy vs. Jason) and never should have won. Mears has a good shot at challenging previous champ Kane Hodder in fans' hearts.
This may be the first Friday that's actually more explicit with the sex than the gore—not that there's no blood, but director Marcus Nispel would much rather linger on a naked teenager than a mutilated corpse.
The 180—a Second Opinion: A critic could argue that this movie is nothing but an excuse for gratuitous violence and nudity. Said critic would be entirely correct, and completely missing the point.